Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

Every once in a while, she would reach up and touch the necklace around her throat. Now that she knew its secret, it felt different, as if the metal were hot against her skin, though she knew that was ridiculous—the necklace had not changed. Only her knowledge of it had.

She kept seeing James, standing over her, his dark gold eyes fixed on hers. The feeling when he opened the necklace, his fingers brushing her throat. That breathless, shivery feeling that sent goose bumps flooding across her skin.

So you loved me and you loved Grace at the same time, she had said to James, thinking he would take hold of that, nod gratefully at her understanding. But the look that had flashed across his face—bitter despair, self-loathing.

I never loved her. Never.

It made no sense, not when matched with his behavior, and yet she felt as if her reality had tilted on its axis. James did love her; he had loved her. Whether that was enough, she did not know; but she knew the depth of her own reaction, reading the words he had written inside her necklace. She had felt as if her heart were pumping light, not blood, through her veins.

Her stomach churned now: confusion, mixed with a hope she had not dared to feel before. If someone—if Lucie—had asked her that moment what she felt, she would have said, I don’t know, I don’t know, but she knew enough: her own feelings were too strong to be ignored any longer. There were things that could go no further, before real damage was done.

She found Matthew at last on the dance floor, being flung about energetically by Eugenia. She hung back among the crowd waiting for the next dance and saw Eugenia look over at her and smile sadly. To Cordelia, the smile said, Please don’t hurt him, though perhaps it was her own imagination. Her own dread.

When the song was over, Eugenia tapped Matthew on the shoulder and pointed to Cordelia; his face lit up, and he walked off the dance floor to join her, rubbing his shoulder. He had grown thinner, she thought with a pang, and that, combined with the bright coat and the enamel leaves in his hair, made him look like a faerie prince.

“Are you rescuing me from Eugenia?” he said. “She’s a good girl, but she does toss one around like a rag doll. I swear I saw through the wards of London to a new and terrible world.”

Cordelia smiled; he sounded all right, at least. “Can we talk?” she said. “Perhaps in the games room?”

Something lit in his eyes: guarded hope. “Of course.”

The games room had been readied: it was a tradition, as a party came to a close, for some of the guests—mostly the men—to retire here for port and cigars. The room smelled of cedar and pine, the walls hung with red-berried holly wreaths. Upon the sideboard had been set bottles of sherry, brandy, and all manner of whiskies. The windows were silvered with ice, and a high fire burning in the grate illuminated the framed portraits on the walls.

It was cozy, and still Cordelia wanted to shiver. Everything in her wanted to avoid hurting him now, tonight. The rest of her knew this wasn’t going to get easier, and the longer she waited, the worse it would be.

“Thank you for sending the Thieves to look after me the other night,” Matthew said. “It was a true act of kindness. And—” He looked at her closely. “I am getting better, Daisy. Christopher has me on this regimen, a bit less every day, and soon enough he says my body will no longer depend on the stuff. I will be able to stop.”

Cordelia swallowed. In all that speech, she thought, he had not once said the words “alcohol” or “drink.” She wanted to say: It will be good when your body no longer wants the stuff, but you will still want it. Every time you are unhappy, you will want to blunt that pain with alcohol; every time you are bored, or feel empty, you will want to fill that hollow, and that will be the hard part, so much harder than you think.

“I remember this dress,” Matthew said, touching her sleeve lightly. There was a little unease in his voice, as if he wondered at her silence. “You worried it was so plain that it wouldn’t suit you, but it does,” he said. “With your hair, you look like a dark flame, edged in fire.”

“You talked me into it,” Cordelia said. She let herself remember the gilded shop, the streets of Paris, the elegant rooftops rising and falling like musical notes. “And I am glad you did. You have Anna’s skill; you see the beauty in potential.”

Matthew closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were fixed on her; she could see every detail in his irises, the bits of gold mixed among the green.

“Do you think of Paris, as I do?” His voice was a little rough. “Even now, when I open my eyes in the morning, I briefly imagine a whole day lies ahead of adventures in Paris with you. There is so much we did not get a chance to do. And after Paris, we could have gone to Venice. It is a palace of water and shadow. There are masked balls—”

She laid her hands against his chest. She could feel his sharp intake of breath. And, this close to him, she could smell his cologne, clean as ocean water, unmixed for once with brandy or wine. “We cannot always be traveling, Matthew,” she said. “We cannot always be running away.”

In answer, he kissed her. And for a moment she let herself be lost in the kiss, in the tender gentleness of it. There was nothing of the fire that there had been the first time, born out of desperation and yearning and incoherent need. There was Matthew in the kiss, who she loved: his bright cutting mind, his vulnerability, his beauty and fragility. There was love, but not passion.

Raziel, let her not hurt him. Not badly. She stood with her hands against his chest, feeling the beat of his heart, his lips brushing hers with the softest pressure, until he drew away, looking at her with confusion in his eyes.

So he had felt it too, the difference.

“Cordelia? Is something wrong?”

“Matthew,” she said. “Oh, my dear Matthew. We must stop.”

He went rigid under her hands, his graceful body suddenly stiff as wood. “Stop what? Stop traveling? I understand,” he added, more calmly. “I did not mean we abandon the fight here in London. We must stay, defend our friends and our city, separate you from Lilith—”

“And then what? What if it were all dealt with? Then what happens?”

In a halting voice, he said, “I know I seem—awful now. But Christopher says I will be well in a fortnight. This will be behind me, I can move forward—”

“Stopping the physical craving isn’t enough,” said Cordelia. “You will still want to drink.”

He flinched. “No. I hate it. I hate what it makes me. You know,” he added, “the reason I started in the first place. You can help me, Daisy. You can go with me to tell my parents what I did. I know it won’t fix everything, but it is the wound at the heart of all that has happened since.”